In Balance and Harmony with Nature

I cut the years off my face,
a straight razor to my skin
removing layer after layer
til I can see myself looking back.

I imagine my eyes fall out
with a plop into the sink,
looking back up at my barren face,
searching for imperfections.

What is revealed under
the layers that people see?
Am I better off without the
protection of all that epidermis?

Sideline Experiments, Distractions

He thinks he's picking me apart
And having the last laugh
Little does he know I'm already inside
Just waiting for the catastrophe
It's coming hard like another explosion
Or else he's falling in around himself
Either way, I'm the cause of this disaster
And so pleased to be the end of something beautiful
Remember me sweetly; and I'll forget you forever

Conversations with a Dead Man

He said -
Dying was like a mouthful of bitter coco powder,
with no water when you really wanted Belgium chocolate.
You choke on the last escaping breath,
as if your diaphram can pull it back in.
Then your eyes come unglued, drifting
out of the sockets, looking down at yourself.
You can see all your lines, scars, tells -
looking up at you as you look at them.

He said -
Watching me was the most fun he's had
since he's been dead.
My lines, scars, tells are blinded -
as I am to them.
There are no rejecting echoes
or criticisms seeping from my skin.

He said -
He would be content to stay with me.
I am a good listener.
When I sleep, with my eyes closed,
I look peaceful,
like he once imagined dying.

Arranged

Your hand in mine, We rewrote our lives,
Nothing turned out the same in the end.

As the ink flowed, we grew together,
one root, one vine, two flowers.

Now I have been plucked
to sit upon the table - alone.

All I can remember is the sun,
the rain and always looking at you.

Creating Character

I write, its what I do,
and you become words
on the page -
another fiction
of paper thin memories
waiting to be torn -
into pieces.
Not worth it, the effort
to rip apart.
Faded, yellowed,
crusted, dried tear
on the page.

Axiology

I stood there listening
as you spouted the
insecurities I confided in you,
and when you were done --
I realized they revealed
more about you
than they ever did about me.

Unwavering your words
made no difference
except one tiny twinge of sadness
that I felt for you.

I never misrepresented myself
and I won’t apologize for who I am
as always I still have myself
and that is worth something.

Confidence Rekindled

I close my eyes and wish I were anywhere else,
but I am still here, still waiting endlessly -
my hair is a little longer and my eyes black,
and yet - I look like someone else looking back at me,
my heart beats a little truer, whispering those dreams,
in which you hold me all night, in which you never give me up,
and I smile, as if the sun has just broken over the ridge,
rays scatter from my face, from my own light,
for I have remembered how to shine,
though I still linger in the shadows, though I am still at home
in the night, and I bid my time. One day, my love will freely flow,
and I will not be able to hide any longer.

Spiel Mit Mir

The procession ushers itself forth. Existentialism on Prom...no, whatever night. I could live, if only through you.

The spotlight looms ominously nearby. It pauses and collects itself. Could it come this way and would I want it to? I pull the curtains close around me, and only my face shows to the crowded audience. They stare as if examining a bizarre zoo creature.

I hope.you like.my work.
Because I don't know how else to tell you who I am.
I take a bow and expect the silence, but I hope for an applause. Just, please, pick up the phone and let your voice stick inside my ear.

It's all so much more important to me than even I'd like to believe.
"I really hope you like my work."

Good Morning... ;)

Childish Affairs

The undercurrent drones
And I see the smile you'd like me to believe
But the flame in your eye is what piques my interest
So, I wait awhile for your composure to break
So you can regain it again
And now you can watch me smile
Because, sweetie, I already know..

Long Strolls Through Open Oil Fields

Drowning out the sound of passing pedestrians
Coasting by gas stations and out of luck
Weathering the storm on the front porch with an old acoustic Gibson
Grandfather's best
People in fury trying to figure out where they're going
Flipping me off, passing on the interstate
Me pointing to gas price signs and easing off the accelerator
Everything in life seems to slow down
And we're caged in this house with no hope of ever getting out
Quick drives to the library become protracted walks
Meet a person along the way and let time transpire into moonlight
Appreciate this moment to be here and alive
And enjoy the finer things in life
I like to stray to on those long nights spent in my room
Take a slow cigarette and pass
Just fall back on my pillow and relax, drift to sleep
Promise me you'll still be here this time...

The Manipulator Meets a Jester

Just a little more than angry. Sending signals. Spinning silk deception over miles and miles of an invisible inforway. With the Keys to this heat underfoot and hurricanes swirling in from the Far East, an advantage. Dual prepositions juxtaposed and the meaning lost in a string of angsty poetry and cryptic lines about a subtle, aching suffering. Torn across the skin and leaving signs, directions to follow across the chest. A seat in a panhandle. Iron and smooth. Brittle and hard. Breaking. How do things get so crazy and just seem to crumble into forgotten pieces? Is this how you want? Is this the only way we've left to desire? There's a face in the background, a whisper stitching through the backdrop.

Pushing. I knew a liar once.

I saw you there.

I'll bet he still knows how to cry. Just ask him. Think he's faking again? I'll bet he doesn't know. I'll bet there's a tunnel. Journey to the center of nothing. Keep waiting for the light. Close your eyes and keep waiting. You can't be disappointed if you're only stricken blind. Keep hoping. Keep writing breathing. Lying. To yourself.

Just stop.

Archangel (Not the Devil)

And ghosts from the past
Just keep coming back
With clenched fingers wrapped tight
Sucking me dry
Beckoning me right in with arms inviting
Pray
The devil coming round for charity
God begging on the corner again
Angels and demons lost in my eyes
We're all just people
More parts of the choir
Preaching right back to the same
With pointed fingers and accusations
Working up a sweat, lashing in
All against ourselves
In the pulpit crying
The congregation on its knees
Passing around concussions
With peyote vipers
Soma spilling over
We're all just foaming at the will
Passing out
This eats me alive and empty to the quick

One-Winged Angels

It becomes so hard to fly sometimes
Keep getting set off track
By the simplest of breezes
And just like so many wilted flower arrangements
I feel what my extremities are lacking
Like a nail straight through my soul
What my heart is ceasing to provide any longer
Life

"Never changed a damn thing."

The Beloved

"I dreamed that the world was crumbling down. We sat on my back porch and watched it."

We picked out our convoluted lives
Stacked them high with all intentions
Best or otherwise
I held your hands in mine
Led you and yours softly down the bank
And one by one ushered you into the rushing current
I watched your faces swell and burst
With excitement, exultation, ruin
And I went about my way
I led others, I followed so long as I had to
And when I needed you
I called you each by name and waited
I took your frigid hands and heaved
But your bloated corpses only floated silently downstream
It seems the one whom God helps, I cannot save
But the ones God forsakes, I take in rapturously
You rush to the waters so boldly
I haste to repeat
And we feel so passionately close
As I slide your hands down my wet skin
And slip away to leave you to the river

"Oh how I want you to know me."

Even the Most Uninspiring Good News Monday

It's only a matter of time
A day of reckonings
I keep up with only one
A tribute to forgotten friends
Lost acquaintances
Chardonnay and celebration
It's only a matter of crying
Nothing new under the sun
Save for nightfall and terrors
Slips and retribution
New trends, old fans, single catatonic episodes
Sing me something
Sweet and sultry
Stare me down
Blink once and this is over
Only a matter of time
Until we define what we're trying to find
Lost on highways and higher than our greatest expectations
What is it we're running from?
But is it even anything?

Words, Words, Words

"I swear, I really feel like the devil every time I talk to you."

"Let me read it."

"No. It's not finished yet. You play a really critical role at this point, and I'm afraid that you'll get the wrong impression."

....Or maybe the fear is that you'll get too much of the right impression.

First impressions always seem to kill me. Scribbling poetry on scraps of paper, posting them online, table cloths and napkins, my own bare palm. Most of which, you'll never even see.

For an Angel No More

She was an angel
Maybe not of the highest choir
Or of beauty most supreme
But an angel, nonetheless
Not his, of course
That was all his fault, anyway
Clawing out the last bit of perfection from her face
With an outstretched arm
Just trying to reach her
Moments before the fall
.
.
.
.
.
All she ever wanted was to learn how to fly

Hermes

Kicking cobblestones and throwing lives off the tops of nine-story parking decks
Walking alone down darkened streets desperately seeking the stars in the sky
I know there's a moon up there somewhere, too
I know you're up there
I wish that you could hear me as I whisper through the night
Because right now
No less than a million things I could easily say to you
Roll off my tongue and to the ground
And right now
No less than a million hollows that would like nothing better
Than for me to stop talking to myself
It makes them uncomfortable
To see a stranger in the streets with an idea he can't help expressing
I can finally see the moon now
I hope it's listening intently
So maybe it can bear my message away
.
.
.
.
How I wish that you could hear me

Euthanasia Silhouette

If I could take any three poisons with me to the grave, you would be the first two.

Blood Relatives (Some Call It Family)

We all fell right through this nothingness
After so long
Believing in this nothing
Learned to live by and with this nothingness
And what we've come to depend on
Has all come crashing down
And left exactly what we had to begin with
Only the bright lights burn a little deeper
When your eyes are fully open
And he tells me now's the time to break down
And we finally tell the truth
After all these years
I can hear him sobbing on the other end of the phone
Pretending he has a cold
"Just another sinus infection," he tells me
But I know exactly what he means....
"Rupture the wall around my heart."

Where is Home?

It’s nothing she believes
Funny she still dreams
Every waking moment into being
Amazing how the day just fled
Gathered quickly and disappeared
Took its leave on the next horizon
Nightfall is approaching soon
To brush away the children
And the remnants of foul histories
An inconversant rampart quits its post
Leaves soldiers for the cause exposed
A poignant victory green lingering in the air
There’s little she still dreams
And even less that she believes
On the trip to nowhere home

Burn Away

We could start a fire, love
And leave all this waste behind
Forget what was yesterday
And let the sands of time
From yesteryear be blown away
Into nothingness
And you and I
We'll keep ourselves to the other side
Stowed safely away from the chaos
Where we can watch it all turn to ash
Right before our eyes
And leave all that was worthwhile
To everyone else some time, somewhere
Behind us or far underfoot
We can settle into one another
And replace all that was before
With the perfect blaze I found in your eyes
The one you placed in my heart
For safe keeping
Let's watch the nothing disappear
Let's burn it all away, love

The Obligatory Numbers Game

It’s the same look in your eyes
The same quiver in your voice I’m going on
It’s been there from the start
And I can’t help but feel I’m a predator
But our souls are both empty vessels
And voices offer no objections
Bodies creep like hours
And the ticking clock of our ambition
Counting down the seconds before we tear ourselves apart
Clothing falls in strips and pieces
And lips lock in the words we never want to say
It’s the way we bend for one another
The only way left to communicate
Would you believe me if I said you don’t mean a thing to me?
I know damn well you would; it’s the same excuses every week

As Hell Is Deep

I watch him take my heart in hand
Twist and compress it until finally
He has fashioned a stylus for himself
Now, he etches away fragments of thoughts
Pieces of mysteries which never found their proper context
Which barely made it out of his head
Across my exposed, torn chest
He tattoos me to make me his own
Now I belong to him
And I have no say in the matter
I watch him take that same heart-stylus
And crumble it into dust
All the while chanting
Saying the desert simply isn't large enough without this
All the while chanting
Saying I lacked the constitution to contain the both of us
So, now that my chest is open to the desert he's created
I have an infinite capacity for "us"
He delivers these last lines lines about "us"
As his figure develops into a miniscule pixel on the far horizon
As he becomes the same dust as the now-disintegrated stylus
Free to blow as far from here as the east is from the west
I know now that I'll never see him again

Worlds Apart

I know I'll find you on that opposing shoreline
Somewhere, I know you're there in hiding
And this knowledge makes me; breaks me
Makes me want to tear these mountains asunder
Wake all the gods from their pacific slumber

Take these worlds apart
And then pull these oceans under....

With you....
Somewhere beyond this sea of sandstone
You're swimming in a perfectly pristine pool
Where water rolls like mercury over everything
Covering the beauty; keeping it safe
From everything that falls apart

Because where you are everything falls into place

Everything....
Is what I want from you
It's all I'm asking for
Once I'm through with running
Once I've traversed this wintry desert
And come finally home, I'm knocking on your door

All this time they say I've been running away
But I've known all the while
That through this lonely metropolitan wilderness
I've been sprinting for the other side
Just to touch and see your face

I'll Be the One

You used to be my sun and moon
My prize and star
I don't have those anymore
I've come millions of miles
And braved tempest after raging tempest
All to come out something stronger in the end
To be something better
Something we could both love
I don't have it anymore
And I cannot fathom why
I know, but I do not
I understand, but I lack comprehension
I guess I'm just not constructed this way
Giving up was something I was never very capable of
I guess my father's arrogance
His pride shines through
I'm just like him
I'll never accept defeat
And I'll never quit until every last limb is broken
Until my last breath is taken and expelled
I know I'm going to die fighting
You used to be my sun and moon
I wish that I could have that once more
But I'm giving up on dreaming